


a day to be normal

by orphan_account



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Family, Gen, tybalt and jules being cute cousins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 08:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4341587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tybalt needs to learn to build up a resistance to Juliet's puppy dog eyes. Shockingly, it works out well for him anyway. (Tybalt and Juliet being cute cousins for nine pages, basically. Also, Verona is a sucky place to be a kid.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a day to be normal

This was a mistake.

He needed to build up a tolerance, he told himself for the twentieth time that day as he sat alone on one of the conspicuously comfortable leather chairs just outside of the dressing room. Of course, he’d been telling himself to build up a resistance to his cousin’s puppy dog eyes for about as long as he could remember, and he’d been trying; but, inevitably, any time Juliet turned her pleading, doe eyed look upon him, he found himself putty in her hands.

And Juliet could be surprisingly conniving when it came down to it. Cunning was a trait that was passed down through the Capulet line and useful to have in life, especially in a society like Verona; it would keep her alive, Tybalt knew, and so he often felt a stroke of pride for her even when he was the one getting dragged into whatever Juliet wanted to do. But why, oh why, he wondered, did Juliet have to force him to come here?

“How about this one, Tybalt?” Juliet called out, before pushing aside the dressing room curtain to reveal what had to have been the fifteenth dress she’d tried on that day; this one a lacy pale pink sundress that was striking when matched with her eyes. Her hair flowed loosely down her back in subtle waves, and she performed a little spin for her cousin before turning to examine herself in the mirror. “I think,” she muttered critically, “the waist is a bit too high. What do you think?”

“It’s.... very nice.”

“‘Very nice’ is a poor opinion to give when asked,” Juliet replied with pursed lips, seeming to at last decide that she disapproved of the dress. “Something constructive.”

Poor Tybalt floundered helplessly, torn between not wanting to disappoint his cousin and having _absolutely no clue what she wanted him to say._ “I- it- I mean- you look- I can’t-” The poor swordsman swallowed helplessly, inwardly panicking. “It’s too pink!” he exclaimed at last, before abruptly clamping his mouth shut with the realisation of just how _stupid_ a statement like that sounded.

If Juliet thought so, however, she didn’t say; in fact, she seemed to take his words to heart. “Huh. You think it’s the color?” She frowned, tilting her head at her reflection, before a grin slowly overtook her face. “You’re right! Let’s try something yellow next!”

“Ugh, not yellow.”

“Not yellow?” She raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“It’s the color of the sun,” retorted Tybalt, pressing his palm to his forehead to try to quell the stress-ache that was slowly beginning to develop; he had long since inherited his aunt’s habit of getting headaches when the need to escape a distasteful situation arose. “And headaches. Look for something purple, the color would suit you.”

He heard Juliet “hmm” to herself, and without even looking could picture the expression on her face as she suddenly exclaimed, “How perfect!” Quickly swiping at least three more dresses off of the rack in varying shades of lilac and maroon, she vanished back inside the dressing room, and all of Tybalt’s hopes for freedom vanished along with her. Sighing, he leaned back on his hands and braced himself for at least another hour of dresses.

“You know,” he called out to his concealed cousin, “we have enough money with us that we could just buy any dress you wanted.”

“Oh Tybalt!” Juliet’s voice was almost teasing from behind the curtain, as if she was saying something that ought to have been obvious the entire time. “We’re not actually here to buy anything! We’re just having fun!”

Tybalt must have made a strange sight, flopping back in his chair like a man who’d just been shot. On the inside, he wasn’t sure if he was crying or screaming.

This was going to be a long day.

xXx

“Well!” Juliet exclaimed, practically skipping her way out of the clothing store. “Now that that’s finally over…”

Her only response from her cousin was a low, impassioned groan. A few paces behind, Tybalt stumbled after her like a zombie. The dazed look on his face was utterly vacant, and his eyes looked tired and bloodshot.

He didn’t know how long he had been in there; how many hours upon endless hours he had endured that hell of dress after dress without end, without any chance of escape in sight. True, his cousin had looked beautiful in every one; but after the twenty fifth dress, all of his passion had been expended and he just felt like a dead man walking. His body and mind drained, it was all he could do to stumble after his cousin to the safety of the outside world he’d found himself questioning if he’d ever see again. The minute his foot landed on cobblestone, he felt the urge to kneel down and kiss the street.

“Where to next?” chirped Juliet, and almost immediately he perked up.

“We’re not going home?”

“Well, we could,” Juliet replied thoughtfully. “But I thought it’s been so long since we’ve had a day- just the two of us. What do you say, cousin- would you like to make this a day out?”

The thought of a day that was just him and Juliet alone invigorated Tybalt with new life; it had been far too long since he’d spent any real time with his cousin, and he missed the days of their youth when he and Juliet were near-constant companions of each other. Going out for a day with Juliet, wandering around town with no real destination in mind and doing whatever they felt like while free from the eyes of their family, was almost a thrilling idea.

“Only,” Tybalt acquiesced, “if we do what I want to do next.”

Juliet grinned at him, seeming delighted. “And what do you want to do?”

Tybalt’s eyes flickered across the street, where a heavy sign hung above the door of one of Verona’s oldest establishments. Juliet’s gaze followed his, and the two exchanged wicked glances. 

Tybalt couldn’t have picked a better place.

xXx

“We do have enough money to pay for all these, right?” Juliet struggled to see over the tower of books balanced precariously in her arms; despite the fact that she was barely able to carry what she now held, she still struggled to add another hardcover novel to the top of the pile. “I just need to get this new poetry book I’ve been thinking about reading for weeks, and I can’t fathom leaving here without it.”

Successful in her endeavor to add the book to the assortment in her arms, she took a few unsteady steps forward and found herself teetering; only to be promptly steadied by Tybalt’s arm despite the own massive stack of books he himself was carrying.

“I think the better question, Juliet-” Glancing over his shoulder, Tybalt gave her his bare-toothed impression of a grin, “is whether or not they have enough bags for us.”

xXx

The actress up on the wide screen let out a shrill scream, stumbling aimlessly along a darkened hallway. She obviously was not faring well; a long trail of blood was left behind as she dragged her hands along the walls, leaving an obvious path for the killer hunting her to follow. Juliet, hunched in her seat, was staring at the screen in a horrified mixture of fascination and awe; the popcorn she had long relinquished to her cousin, who was now popping pieces into his mouth eagerly and watching the screen with a disturbing sort of smile playing on his lips.

When the hunted woman rounded the dark corner only to come face to face with the mask of the murderer, half of the theatre let out a scream; Tybalt was the only one who actually chuckled. Appalled, Juliet glanced over at him and lightly smacked his arm.

“What’s funny?”

“She’s going to die,” Tybalt replied simply, not tearing his eyes away from the brutal murder scene playing out before him as he popped another piece of popcorn into his mouth, then offering the bag to Juliet. His cousin slowly shook her head, returning to hiding her face in her hands and peeking out from between her fingers as the movie continued on.

xXx

“Despite the excessive amounts of gore,” Juliet mused over dinner- a salad and pasta dish which had been brought out by the waitress just minutes ago and seemed to please the young Capulet girl greatly- “I actually enjoyed that movie! I’m glad we went to see it!”

“Eh. I would have liked to see something with more action.”

“You mean you would have rather seen _Love Comes to Sicily,”_ Juliet corrected with a thin smile that just broadened when her cousin choked on his water.

“I- I would-” Tybalt’s protested were made a bit strangled by the fact that he was still struggling to speak with his lungs full of water, and the coughing and hacking made him a bit more than difficult to understand. “Would- not!”

“Oh, come on Tybalt,” Juliet giggled. “We both know romance movies make you cry.”

“That was one time!”

“One time… with what movie? Because I can count all the movies I’ve seen you shed a tear at, and I’m pretty sure there are more than ten that I can remember offhand…” Juliet actually looked ready to start listing them, too, until a pleading whine from her cousin called her down.

“You’re wicked,” Tybalt muttered, scowling into his own pasta. Juliet offered him a playful wink, and he rolled his eyes in reply.

It was a few moments later that a sigh brought his attention back up to his cousin again. “You know,” she remarked, playing with the hem of her blouse, “it’s been too long since we’ve had a day like this. I’ve missed just spending time together.”

Tybalt brushed a strand of unruly hair out of his face, frowning down at his dish. “I have too,” he replied after a few seconds. “It’s hard to find the time when we can just be…”

“Us.”

“Exactly,” he replied, nodding his head. “Just cousins, just friends… without having to worry about the feud, or our family, or anything like that. It’s almost like we can just be…”

“Normal,” Juliet finished quietly, staring into her water glass pensively before taking a sip.

Tybalt glanced up at her, his dark eyes conveying his surprise. “We are normal, Juliet.”

“Not in the way other kids are.” His cousin shook her head. “Like in the movies- those kids never have to worry about their families, or about fighting, or about who’s going to wind up dead in a gutter next-”

_“Juliet.”_

“But it’s true. You know it is.” She glanced up at him again, her eyes shining warmly. “Which is why I’m glad for times like these- times we can spend together, as just us. Times when it can seem like nothing is wrong with the world.”

Tybalt couldn’t stop himself from snorting at the statement. “Well, that’s a bit of a stretch.”

“No it isn’t,” Juliet rolled her eyes, flicking a few drops of water at him. Tybalt made a noise somewhere between a snarl and a hiss, cringing backwards and swiping at his face as if she’d thrown something poisonous on him, and his cousin couldn’t retain her laughter for more than a few seconds before it all seemed to come spilling out of her at once.

“It’s not funny!” Tybalt whined, sounding in that moment far more like a little boy than a solemn Capulet nephew. “You know how much I hate getting wet, you _know_ -”

“I know,” reiterated Juliet, still flickering between laughter and forced seriousness. “I’m sorry, Tybalt.”

The sour glare her cousin sent her had her dissolving into a fit of laughter all over again; and maybe she was crazy, but she could have almost sworn she saw Tybalt crack a smile as well.

xXx

Seeing Juliet laugh was probably one of the most beautiful things a person could see, Tybalt mused as he strode arm and arm with his cousin down the street. When Juliet laughed, it was almost as if he could feel the sun on his skin; and when she laughed just for him to hear he felt as if he were witnessing something special, something personal and incredible and just for him. He sometimes thought he would be a happy man if he could just watch Juliet laughing, every day, for as long as he lived. If he died tomorrow, he wanted his last minutes to be spent listening to Juliet’s laughter, because Juliet’s laughter held light that was almost foreign in Verona.

His cousin baffled him, sometimes; she also amazed him.

“Hey- Tybalt!”

The sound of Juliet’s voice had his head turning towards her, and he sharply recoiled as he was without warning hit by a spray of water. The shopping bags from the bookstore fell out of his hands as he stumbled backwards, shocked eyes taking in Juliet leaning casually against the base of a fountain.

“You-” His words devolved into a snarl and he lunged forward, causing Juliet to let out a cry of alarm as she dashed out of his way; but she was not fast enough, for the handful of water Tybalt sent her way splashed upon her dress and in her hair. The girl shrieked, immediately going for retaliation; swiftly, her cousin ducked behind the statue in the middle of the fountain, taking swift refuge before sending another splash around to hit her.

Juliet let out a whine. “Tybalt, my hair!”

Her cousin peeked out from behind the statue, and a devilish smirk played on his lips. “If you hadn’t gotten _my_ hair wet in the first place then you wouldn’t have that problem, now would you?”

“You’re mean!”

Tybalt rolled his eyes, watching as Juliet turned to collect the bags that had fallen to the ground behind her; the first thing he noticed was the way she stopped suddenly in her tracks. He hadn’t actually noticed that they were being watched until that moment, he realized with a sudden jolt; he had forsaken his duties as Juliet’s protector in the sake of having fun, and as he straightened up he furiously berated himself in the silence of his own head for his negligence.

Montagues, he knew, recognizing them just by their faces; not the rabble of the young Montague son and his friends, but a few servants and cousins of the family. Troublemakers, no doubt. They stood over the bags lying on the ground, towering above the stunned Juliet; in an instant Tybalt had pushed his cousin back towards the fountain, drawing his sword from his belt and glowering at his opponents.

“Tybalt-”

“Stand back,” he ordered his cousin shortly, and the one who seemed to be the leader of the gang of Montagues raised an eyebrow.

“How quickly she follows orders,” he noted to one of his companions. “Isn’t that sweet? Like a little trained Capulet do-”

In a second a blade was pointed towards his throat and three more were trained on Tybalt. “Don’t speak of her that way,” he snarled. “Not if you be a man.”

The Montague with the sword at his neck seemed appropriately perturbed by it’s presence, and chose not to speak; but one of his companions let out a sharp laugh. “And what be you?”

“Your death,” Tybalt shot back, causing another laugh to go up fro the small gang.

“Very well, then,” returned the Montague. “I’ll have you, if you so wish.”

Tybalt never felt more alive than he did during a fight; the rush of adrenaline, the calculated, furious power it took to block every blow. It was an organized dance his mind performed with ease; one came at him from the side, he parried and flung the man’s sword away from him with his own before spinning around and blocking the attack of a second before it even came close to reaching its intended destination of the middle of his back. The blow was strategic but a basic move that Tybalt had defended against many times before; these men had nothing new to surprise him with, so they were hardly threats to him.

The third fighter was more skilled that the first two, but all he was was another fighter to Tybalt’s trained mind; the Capulet warrior was surprised by a slash on the shoulder, but that was all the blood the man got the chance to draw before Tybalt’s foot slammed into his knee and he crumpled to the pavement, being swiftly disarmed thereafter. The fourth Montague already had his sword on the ground when Tybalt turned to him and kicked him clear off his feet; all four of his opponents lay on the pavement, in various states of humblement.

For a flash of a second, Tybalt felt the familiar thirst for blood stirring in his veins; these men had eyed Juliet, they had spoken of her, they would have hurt her. They were scum, they didn’t deserve to live when they were a threat to everything Tybalt stood for; his breath coming out in sharp, heavy pants, his eyes lit up with a fighter’s glow. His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword as he gazed at the nearest man on the ground...

“Tybalt!”

Hearing Juliet’s voice was like a spell breaking; Tybalt opened his eyes, and his hand relaxed on his blade. The four men wasted no time gathering their weapons and scampering back to whatever hole they had crawled out from; Tybalt’s eyes followed them as they hastily made their escape, and only then did he turn back to Juliet.

The sight of her, alone and unharmed by the fountain, was enough cause for him to sheathe his sword; but he paused, in almost baffled wonderment, as he realized that his cousin was shaking.

He hadn’t been… Tybalt paused, his brain desperately trying to make sense of Juliet’s obvious fear. He had been protecting her. Why did she look so… afraid of him all of a sudden?

The idea- the thought that Juliet could be frightened of _him_ \- hit him like a bolt, and he suddenly felt nauseous. He hadn’t meant to scare her; that had been the last thing he had wanted. “Juliet…”

“Let’s go home, Tybalt.”

Juliet’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion; her cousin’s eyes followed her as she pushed away from the safety of the fountain, bent to retrieve her shopping bags from the ground, and straightened up. “If any more Montagues come, we’ll be in trouble. We should go home right now.”

Tybalt didn’t say a word; instead, his hand still lingering over the hilt of his sword in his belt, he followed her home in silence.

xXx

“You were amazing,” the voice came unexpectedly, severing the night’s still silence in one easy whisper. Tybalt spun around, having thought he was alone in the hall outside his bedroom; the sight of Juliet in her nightdress, lingering at the end of the hallway, reminded him at once of a spectre.

“I… didn’t mean to scare you,” he said hesitatingly. “It was just a fight.”

“I’ve never seen one up close before,” his cousin replied quietly. “I wasn’t afraid, just… taken aback. It was a bit alarming to see for the first time.”

“I’m sorry.”

Tybalt had never been any good at apologizing; but the sincerity in his tone seemed to at least register with Juliet, for she nodded her head with a vaguely thoughtful expression on her face.

“I did enjoy today,” she said quietly, the moon’s glow from the window casting light on one side of her face and leaving the other part veiled in shadow. “I want to have more days like it. Days where all we have to be…”

“Is us,” Tybalt finished, thinking of her words from earlier. Evidently this was the right thing to say; a smile flickered over Juliet’s face, and she nodded before slipping back, out of the window’s light and around the corner of the hall again.

“Goodnight, cousin,” he heard her call before vanishing from sight. Tybalt stared after her for a long moment, eyes lingering on the place she had been; her spectral figure still floated around his tangled mass of thoughts, the sound of her laugh from earlier echoing in his head.

If he had learned one thing about his cousin today, it was that she wanted nothing more than for the two of them to just be allowed to be themselves in the midst of the feud surrounding them.

Still, Tybalt couldn’t help but wonder as he stared after the girl he had grown up with, how much of himself existed outside of the feud he’d known since the day he was born?


End file.
